Jason and the Argonauts (Penguin Classics)
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Hyllaea and went speeding on their way.
Soon they had left all the Liburnian islands,
725one by one, behind them in their wake,
Issa, Dysceladus, fair Pityeia—
islands that lately had been full of Colchians.
Then they passed Corcyra where Poseidon
settled the fair-haired daughter of Asopus,
730Corcyra, far, far from the land of Phlius
from which the god had snatched her up in love.
Sailors who see it from the sea, all wooded
and somber, call it Dark Corcyra.
Next,
cheered by a balmy breeze, they passed Melita,
735 (573)sheer Cerossus, then, much farther on,
Nymphaea where the queen Calypso lived,
Atlas’ daughter. They would soon have seen
the misty mountains of Ceraunia,
but Hera turned her thoughts toward Zeus’ verdict
740and heavy penalty. To force the heroes
onto the necessary course, she roused
storm winds, which fastened on the ship and pushed it
back to the rocky island of Electris.
Next thing they knew, as they were dashing backward,
745one of the Argo’s beams, the one Athena
had chopped out of an oak tree in Dodona
and fitted as the Argo’s keel, emitted
a human voice, a warning. Holy dread
possessed them when they heard the voice proclaiming
750 (585)Zeus’ terms—to wit, that they would never
survive the long sea paths and fierce sea squalls
unless the goddess Circe washed away
their cruel assassination of Absyrtus.
What’s more, it told the brothers Polydeuces
755and Castor to beseech the gods to grant
safe passage into the Ausonian Sea
where they must stop and visit Circe, daughter
of Helius and Persa. So the Argo
cried through the night. Tyndareus’ sons
760arose and raised their hands to the immortals,
praying, Please, may all this come to pass,
though grief had gripped the other Minyan heroes.
The ship dashed onward under sail and reached
the halfway point on the Eridanus
765 (598)where Phaëthon, chest smitten by a flashing
lightning bolt, fell, half-incinerated,
out of the chariot of Helius
into the river muck, and to this day
foul vapors rising from the smoldering wound
770bubble out of the brackish slick. No bird
can pass on flapping wings above that fen,
no, they all catch fire and drop midflight.
Hidden in lofty poplars there, sad maidens,
the Heliades, raise sorrowful laments
775and from their eyelids gleaming drops of amber
fall to the sand. The sunlight dries them there.
Then, when a strong wind heaves the current over
its banks, the flood tide rolls them, hardened balls
of amber, into the Eridanus.
780 (611)The Celts, who give a variant of the story,
claim that the tears the rapids sweep along
are really those that Leto’s son Apollo
shed many years before, when Zeus was angry
over the boy that beautiful Coronis
785bore to Apollo, next to the Amyrus,
on gleaming Lacereia. Riled in turn,
Apollo spurned the sky and stayed awhile
among the holy Hyperborean tribes.
Such is the story told among the Celts.
790The heroes felt no thirst or hunger there,
nor did their minds think happy thoughts. No, rather,
all day burdened with the noxious stench,
they tired and sickened. The Eridanus
and all its streams were boiling off the vapors
795 (623)of Phaëthon’s still smoldering corpse—
unbearable. All night the heroes heard
the Heliades lamenting his demise,
weeping and weeping, and their tears went drifting
downstream like little drops of oil.
From there
800they crossed into the deeply flowing Rhône.
Here, where it marries the Eridanus,
enemy roars contend. The Rhône, you see,
starts at the farthest outskirts of the earth
where Night’s portcullis and embankments stand.
805Part of it flows into the River Ocean,
part empties into the Ionian Sea,
and part goes rushing out through seven mouths
into a large bay off Sardinia.
While on the Rhône, they crossed into a chain
810 (635)of stormy lakes that pock the vast, unmeasured
plains of the Celts. They almost met with shameful
destruction there because a tributary
was trending off into the Gulf of Ocean,
and they, in ignorance, resolved to take it.
815They never would have gotten out alive.
But Hera leapt from heaven just in time
and shrieked turn back! from a Hercynian peak,
and all the heroes trembled at the cry,
so ominously did the vast sky echo.
820So, with divine assistance, they reversed
their course and found a route to take them home.
A good long slog, and they had reached at last
a beach and ocean breakers, after passing,
unchallenged, through a thousand tribes of Celts
825 (647)and Ligyans, and all because of Hera—
she poured impenetrable mist around them
all the days they traveled on the river.
They coasted out the fourth mouth of the seven
and beached safely amid the Stoechades,
830thanks to the sons of Zeus—this is the reason
altars and rites were founded here to honor
the two of them forever. They were not
to serve as saviors only on that voyage,
but Zeus bestowed on them the privilege
835of saving future sailors’ vessels, too.
Once past the Stoechades, the heroes reached
the island of Aethalia and there,
exhausted, scrubbed away their scum of sweat
with pebbles, and the pebbles on that beach
840 (657)are fleshy colored to this very day.
Their discuses of stone and marvelous tackle
are still there also, and the site is named
The Argo’s Anchorage because of them.
From there they sailed swiftly through the heaving
845Ausonian Sea with the Tyrrhenian coast
in view beside them. After they arrived
at the illustrious harbor of Aeaea,
they tied the lines up at the nearest shore.
And there was Circe in the sea spray washing
850her hair because a dream had troubled her.
During the night it seemed that all the walls
and chambers of her house were dripping blood,
and flames were eating up the cache of drugs
with which she had, up to that time, bewitched
855 (668)whoever came to visit. She herself
had quenched the flames with sacrificial blood
and so recovered from her horrid fright.
And that was why she rose at dawn and went
to wash her hair and clothing in the surf.
860And there were beasts around her that resembled
neither carnivorous animals nor humans
in any normal way but some mélange
of limbs from each. These creatures followed Circe,
as flocks of sheep in countless numbers follow
their shepherd from the fold.
8
65Long, long ago,
before dry weather had solidified
the soil, before, as well, it had received
moisture enough beneath the arid sun,
Earth made this sort of thing all on her own,
870 (680)a kind with mixed-up limbs, out of the slime.
And Time, then, sorted out and reassembled
the animals at long last into species.
Crossed like those ancient creatures, the amorphous
monsters of Circe followed in her train.
875Boundless amazement overcame the heroes,
and when they gazed on Circe’s skin and eyes,
they knew at once she was Aeëtes’ sister.
When she had cleansed the terror of her nightmares,
she turned homeward and bade the heroes follow
880by slyly stroking them as she went by.
The crew, however, at a nod from Jason,
remained behind, and he alone escorted
the Colchian maiden, and the two of them
followed the path until they reached the palace.
885 (692)Though Circe was disturbed by their arrival,
she bade them rest at ease on polished chairs.
They sprinted to the hearth, though, without speaking
and sat there, in accordance with the customs
that rule the rueful rites of supplication.
890Medea hid her beauty in her hands,
and Jason plunged straight down into the floor
the sword with which he killed Aeëtes’ son,
and they did not lift up their eyes and look
upon the goddess. Thus she knew, straight off,
895their lot was exile and their crime kin-murder.
So, in accordance with the rites of Zeus
the God of Suppliants who, on the one hand,
mightily despises murderers
and, on the other, mightily defends them,
900 (702)she made the sacrifice required to cleanse
the suppliants sitting, tainted, at her hearth:
First, to expunge the deed’s contamination,
Circe picked out and held above their heads
the offspring of a swollen-uddered sow.
905Then, opening the piglet’s throat, she lathered
Jason’s and Medea’s hands with blood.
A second time with different libations
she made an offering to Zeus Purgation,
the last defense of suppliant homicides.
910The Naiad slaves who served her every need
then whisked the toxic stuff out of the palace.
Circe herself beside the hearth fire offered
wineless libations and devotional cakes
as gifts to soothe the dogged Furies’ rage
915 (715)and soften Zeus to leniency, regardless
of whether they implored his grace with hands
tainted by foreign or familial blood.
When she had finished with the expurgation,
she told them they could rise, then seated them
920on polished chairs and took a seat before them.
She was the first to speak, inquiring all
about their quest, its purpose and the place
from which they came to seek her land and palace,
and why they had collapsed beside her hearth.
925The troubling specifics of her nightmare
recurred to her as she assessed the couple.
What’s more, she had been eager to discover
their language ever since the maiden first
lifted her gaze up from the ground. You see,
930 (727)all of the sun god Helius’ descendants
are easy to identify because
their radiant eyes emit a light like gold.
All earnestness, Aeëtes’ daughter answered
each of her questions in the Colchian tongue.
935She told her of the heroes’ quest and travels,
how they had toiled in the awful contest,
how she had erred by heeding her distracted
sister, and how, among the sons of Phrixus,
she had escaped her father’s dreadful threats.
940She left the murder of Absyrtus out
but Circe, all the same, surmised the crime,
pitied her sobbing niece and said:
“Poor wretch!
Look what a scandalous, obscene elopement
you have devised. No, I do not expect
945 (740)you will escape Aeëtes’ brutal rage
for long. He shortly will be hunting even
the citizens of Hellas to avenge
his son’s assassination. It was you
who perpetrated those appalling crimes.
950Still, since you are my niece and at my knees,
I shall refrain, now that you’re here, from making
further trouble for you. Go on, now.
Please leave my home and take this stranger with you—
whoever he might be that you have taken,
955against your father’s wishes, as your own.
Don’t bother sitting at my hearth again
and supplicating me for help, because
your reckless schemes and impudent elopement
are things of which I never shall approve.”
960 (749)So Circe scolded, and insufferable
agony gripped the girl. She pulled a robe
over her eyes and poured forth liquid grief
until the hero took her by the hand
and led her, quivering, across the threshold.
965And so they made their way from Circe’s palace.
Cronian Zeus’ wife had not been left
unbriefed of their departure. Iris saw them
leave the palace and informed her mistress,
Hera, who had commanded her to note
970when they departed for the ship, and Hera
gave Iris fresh instructions:
“Iris darling,
if ever in the past you have performed
my bidding, set out on your rapid wings
and summon Thetis up out of the sea
975 (759)to join me here. I have a need of her.
Next, travel to the shores where heavy hammers
pound the big bronze anvils of Hephaestus.
Tell him to pacify his fiery forges
until the heroes’ ship has passed them. Next,
980find Aeolus, who regulates the gales,
those naughty children of the upper air,
and give him my instructions: he must temper
all the winds of heaven so that not
the slightest breeze disturbs the sea, except
985a kind west wind, until the heroes reach
Alcinoös’ Phaeacian kingdom.”
So she commanded. Iris flew at once
down from Olympus on extended wings,
tapered and glided into the Aegean
990 (772)just over Nereus’ deep-sea palace.
To execute the first of her three tasks
she swam in search of Thetis and delivered
the message, just as Hera had instructed,
to call the sea nymph up to talk with her.
995Next, Iris paid a visit to Hephaestus
and told him to desist forthwith from swinging
his iron hammer. Then at last she reached
Aeolus, famous son of Hippotas.
While she was giving him the news and resting
1000her swift knees from her travels, Thetis left
Nereus and her sisters, swam, then flew
up to Olympus and the goddess Hera,
and Hera offered her a seat and said:
“Hear, goddess Thetis, what I want to tell you.
1005 (784)You know how highly Jason and his comrades
rate in my love. You know I pushed them safely
through the Clashing Rocks, when forks of fire
were violen
tly thundering above them
and waves were boiling round the jagged headlands.
1010Now their journey leads them past imposing
Cape Scylla and Charybdis’ eruptions.
But listen. Ever since you were an infant,
I myself have nursed and cherished you
more than the other ocean goddesses
1015because you never dared to go to bed
with Zeus, though he was sorely yearning for it—
yes, he has always had his love affairs
with mortals and immortals, too. But you
were fearful in your thoughts because you so . . .
esteemed me.
1020 (798)Though he swore a mighty oath:
Never would you be called the wife of god,
he never did abstain from leering at you—
against your will, of course—no, not until
venerable Themis told him what would happen,
1025how it was fated you would bear a son
mightier than his father. So at last
he gave you up, for all of his desire,
so that no one would be his match and rule
the gods in lieu of him, but he would keep
his empery forever.
1030So I gave you
the finest of the mortals for a husband
so that you might enjoy a heartfelt wedding
and bear a child. I summoned all the gods
down for the wedding feast, and I myself
1035 (809)held up the bridal torch in my own hands
to pay you for the kind esteem you gave me.
Now let me tell the truth about the future:
your son—the one the Naiads now are nursing
in Centaur Cheiron’s cave, the one who wants
1040his mother’s milk—that very son of yours
will come one day to the Elysian Fields,
and it is fated that he wed Medea,
Aeëtes’ daughter, there. Mother-in-law,
therefore, protect your son’s betrothed-to-be,
1045along with Peleus. Why do you hold
so fixed a grudge against him? He was foolish,
but folly sometimes blinds immortals, too.
I am quite confident that on my orders
Hephaestus will desist awhile from stoking
1050 (820)his forges to a rage, and Aeolus
the son of Hippotas will check the gusts
of rushing winds, that is, except for Zephyr,
until they reach the Phaeacian harbor.
You must guarantee the men safe passage.
1055My worst fears are the rocks and toppling waves,
but you can foil them with your sisters’ help.
Prevent my friends from plunging, through ineptness,